


Like a Human

by Windian



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Gen, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6833797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You need more training," Emeraude says. "No more hesitation, Protos Heis. You must be decisive, deadly. You are a weapon. Nothing else.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Human

**Author's Note:**

> Based on sidequest #50: "like a human" on Fodra where Protos Heis fails to protect a human child.

The persistent beep of the communication device disturbs Emeraude from her work. She's asked, several times, about installing the device on her desk, only to be deferred by protests about protocol and seven hells of damned bureaucracy. She's tempted to ignore it, except when the beeping finally finishes it begins its second set: shrill, drilling. She stabs the off key for her screen and rolls her chair over to the other side of the lab. Picks up the reciever with a curt, "What is it? I'm busy."

The nervous, stammering voice of the receptionist girl chitters in her ear, "I-I apologise, Doctor. But there's been an incident with one of the humanoids."

"I hardly think that concerns me." _This_ is what they've chosen to disturb her work for? "Contact the humanoid research centre."

She can almost hear the girl's nervous swallow on the other end. "I'm sorry, Doctor. We thought you'd want to know. The incident involves Protos Heis."

She's almost ready to slam down the receiver, but at that name, Emeraude pauses, listens. "Tell me the details."

* * *

Making her way through the facility, a young man holds the door open for Emeraude without making eye contact. Yet she can still feel his lingering pitying look, setting her blood aflame with the sudden rush of anger.

Before the accident happened, no one would have dared to look at her like that. She'd been one of the rising stars in eleth research, the bright young thing who'd won the Carter award and scholarship, winning herself a place in the development of the colony planet, Ephinea. People had been happy to meet with her, eager to share in her expertise and knowledge.

After it happened, she'd been confined to a wheelchair. Yet, she discovered, the worst part of it wasn't even the loss of the use of her legs: it was the people who shifted, uneasily, when they spoke to her. Who didn't know whether they should stand or kneel down and talk to her like a child.

She'd been treated with pity, or pushed aside and disregarded.

And Director Cornell wouldn't even _look her in the eye_. Wouldn't even treat her like another human being.

"Doctor, I was asked to accompany you." One of the young interns meets her at reception. His chin is prickled with patchy adolescent stubble, his badge is shiny and new. His gaze wavers under hers. "It- it was one of the monsters from Sector 66. They've been particularly vicious lately. I'll escort you. Would you like me to push yo-"

Emeraude cuts him off. "I'm quite capable," she says shortly.

She's been told she's intimidating. But if it's a choice between intimidating or being pitied and looked down upon, she knows which one she'd rather have every time.

* * *

These days, Fodra is cloaked in the perpetual rusk of sunset. Which would be pretty, except that it's a side effect of the reduction of eleth in the air. As they make their way up the crumbling incline, her companions are the strained breathing of the intern boy, and the silent efficiency of the humanoid accompanying them. Fitted with the latest in combat technology that she herself had a part in designing, but nothing special. Not like Protos Heis.

The vegetation was already becoming sparse on Fodra when she was a girl. Humanity had plundered Fodra of its natural resources, scooping it dry like a pomegranate, leaving only the bitter pips. By the time she joined the Foselos Program, contingency plans were already being put into place.

Perched on the edge of the horizon like a gald coin sat on the windowsill of the world is Ephinea; Cornell's future utopia and humanity's last hope. Until he'd unleashed his abomination on the haven they'd spent decades terraforming.

Emeraude bites down her lip, hard enough to draw blood. Cornell is dead, by her own orders, and yet she still can't escape him.

* * *

 _What a mess this is_ , Emeraude thinks. The authorities are swarming like insects when she arrives, and she has to wave her paperwork in three men's faces before they'll give her clearance.

The child's body is taken away, along with the remains of the nova monster Protos Heis had dispatched. If somewhat too late.

Yet another victim of this madness Cornell had started. Emeraude's heart catches in her throat as the body bag is wheeled past. This child's death is senseless. Pointless. All because a foolish old man decided the devil itself made a cute pet.

(And yet, when Emeraude closes her eyes against the glare of russet light, she can still see it, again and again. She'd been so sure that with his life on the line, he would hand the creature over. She hadn't thought that she would really have to _kill_ him. He'd given up everything for a creature that wasn't even human, even his life, and even now she still cannot fathom _why._ )

"Ma'am, you can go ahead now. We've been keeping your humanoid over there." The official finally waves her through, and she bites down the retort that it's _Doctor_ , not _ma'am_.

Protos Heis is sat on the cliffside. Its legs dangle over the edge, head bowed. In its hands it holds what appears to be a brooch.

If Emeraude didn't know better, she'd say the humanoid's expression is sad. Yet that's impossible. It might be made of eleth instead of metal, yet Protos Heis is a tool all the same.

At her approach, Protos Heis lifts its head. A tool's eyes, at the very least, do not flinch away from her.

"What happened here?" she asks it.

Yet Protos Heis responds with confusion: "That girl, she was badly damaged. Her vital readings disappeared. My recovery artes didn't take any effect."

"That's because she's dead," Emeraude says.

Protos Heis bows its head again, swallow tails of its hair dragging through the dirt. And that expression on its face again- almost as though the thing is _grieving_ -

"Doctor, it was my fault, wasn't it?"

Emeraude doesn't see the need to beat around the bush with a humanoid, either. "Yes. Your reactions were too slow. You should have detected the threat and reacted."

Protos Heis's fingers tangle around the brooch- just where had it got it from, anyway? "I'm sorry," it says.

In Telos Astue, there are people who treat their humanoid servants as fellow humans. Companion Droids, they call them in the stores. They have self-learning programming and a higher level of artifical intelligence than regular service droids. If you smile at one, they'll smile back. Pretend emotions, for pretend companions.

Pure stupidity, Emeraude thinks.

"Protos Heis, give me that thing."

The humanoid hesitates, then offers Emeraude the brooch. Its fingers, unlike other androids, are warm. The brooch is something a child might wear- two yellow daisies, interlocking.

"This belonged to the girl," Emeraude deduces.

"She gave it to me. She said she'd treat me like a human." Protos Heis frowns, bending down to stare at its hands.

"I see," says Emeraude. She holds the brooch out, and Protos Heis reaches out to take it. Before it can, Emeraude lets it slip from her fingers, watches it as it vanishes with a sparkle down the cliffside.

Emeraude surveys the semblance of emotions shifting rapidly on Protos Heis's face- from confusion, to grief, to anger- before it wipes them clean.

Good, thinks Emeraude.

"Come," she says. "I need to make some adjustments to you at the lab. You need more training. No more hesitation, Protos Heis. You must be decisive, deadly. You are a weapon. Nothing else."

Protos Heis nods, face vacant of emotion. "I understand."

 


End file.
